Hiking the Wellsvilles

On Friday, July 31, 2009, Brad, Abby and I hiked to the very top of the Wellsville Mountains! This is something that Brad and I have been saying that we wanted to do for a few years, but have just never actually done it. We got up, and with camelbacks on our backs began our hike at 7:30 am. In the pictures below you can see that the trail starts out... as a trail, but the further we got the more overgrown the trail was and there were several random rocks and tree trunks/roots sticking out, so we really had to watch our footing as we hiked. For about the first 1 and 1/2 hours we were in the trees, then we broke out of the trees and the trail at this point was extremely overgrown and narrow, but there was a trail, nevertheless!

As we were hiking and hiking, we got to a point where the trail went down in a ravine and then looked like it kind of wrapped around toward the back of the mountain. At this point we had been hiking 2 1/2 hours or so, so Brad pointed to the top of the mountain and said "Well, that is where we want to go, I say we just head straight up this mountainside." Abby and I totally agreed. (LITTLE did we know what we were getting ourselves into!!) Note: the pic of Brad and Abby standing almost vertically with the mountainside. Yes! That is where we went. Oh, how I learned to appreciate that little "overgrown" trail. We were blazing our way through sagebrush and bushes that were brutal! ... And we were going straight up the mountain. Along the way we found some perfectly formed seashells, which was kind of cool. I guess left over from years ago when Lake Bonneville once covered the area. We made it to the top! Hurray!

It was beautiful. You could see the whole Cache Valley and down into Brigham City. We sat at the top and ate our lunch, rested our weary feet and enjoyed the view for about an hour. Then ounce again our journey began. As we tried to find the trail that we left to take back down.....

We couldn't find the trail, so we had to make our way down the mountainside, once again, blazing our own trail. :) About 1/2 way down, we could see the trail, but the trick was to find it. Which eventually we did. But first we had to go through our sagebrush, down rock slides, and through a jungle of plants as tall as we were, which we realized partway through was 3/4 stinging nettle. Ha, ha. Something to laugh about now! But what an adventure. We had a great family adventure. It ended up taking us 8 1/2 hours. If we ever do it again, we will definitely not leave the trail. I bet we could do it in less than 7 hours! Other than a few bruises and blisters on the feet, we came through like Champs! And just a little bit of trivia info: The Wellsville Mountains are the steepest mountains in the US from base to top - due to how narrow and tall they are. (Google it!)

And we climbed those mountains, baby!

Lake Powell.... Part 2

So, the blog would not let me download all of my collages onto one post. Yeah! I will make two posts. The following are my incredibly talented kids doing their water sports. (In case you didn't read my disclaimer in my blog title: this is a place for me to "brag") Tanton is amazing at wakeboarding. He even landed one of his flips, and the surfing... we just barely started it and he seemed to get that down pretty quick, too. Our new boat has the ballast bags that you can fill to make bigger wakes. This makes it so that you can surf and even let go of the rope. There is a video of Tanton doing this at the end of this blog.

And here is another bunch of talent. Abby decided this year that she was going to slalom ski, and she did it! Hurray for her. I cannot imagine having started doing all of these sports at such a young age. The boat is such a great family toy. It brings everyone together on a 21 foot area for almost an entire day! That would never happen at home. We sure have a lot of fun.

(Remember you can click on the collages to see the pictures in larger form)

So this is pretty darn cool! Tanton surfing.

Lake Powell... Part 1

It was kind of a late planned plan.. but we decided to head down to Lake Powell for a long weekend. It is a long drive, 7-8 hrs, we went to Page, AZ, because they have a lot more accommodations for hotels, eating, etc. than Bullfrog does and we were just staying in a hotel this time. I asked my sisters if they wanted to join us, Kathy and 2 of her kids (Taylor and Nicole), and Stacy's son, Chad came. Then there was Brad, Tanton, Abby and myself. It was Kathy, Taylor, Nicole and Chad's first time to Lake Powell, ever! We had some great weather - 100 degrees and sun. The water temp. was 84-86 degrees.

I had an awesome time. Lake Powell is one of my favorite places. Once you are out on the water there is nothing to do but relax, and I love that! I especially love Lake Powell because of the warm water. Everybody had fun - wakeboarding, waterskiing, tubing, surfing, and just swimming. What a fun time! I am so glad that we are able to go and do fun things and take our kids to enjoy the wonderful outdoors and the beauty of Lake Powell, and I am happy that we could spend it with some of my favorite people in the world! :)